Friday, August 9, 2013

From Food Babe: What is Trader Joe's Hiding?

A family member does this little game with me and it happens over and
over. After trying a bite of something that looks homemade, I say, “Mmm
where did you get this from?” and she says, “Don’t worry, it’s from
Trader Joe’s, so it’s organic.” The fact that people assume all products
from Trader Joe’s are organic or healthy or better than what you would
find elsewhere is an alarming misconception.

For the last several months, I’ve been getting a lot of questions
about Trader Joe’s. Many people are questioning the grocery store
chain’s policies on genetically engineered ingredients (GMOs) and asking
if I personally trust their statements about the use of GMOs in their
store brand products – my short answer is no, I don’t.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I LOVE shopping at Trader Joe’s. It’s fun,
the employees are super nice and helpful and it’s a pleasant experience.
However, they won’t share any information with us and are completely
cloaked in secrecy regarding their business practices, which makes my
head want to explode.

Given what Trader Joe’s tells us about their GMO policy, we should
trust them, right? Or are we trusting them just like many consumers
trusted Naked Juice, Tostitos, Kashi, Gold Fish, Barbara’s Bakery, etc.
who are or have been faced with lawsuits finding suspected GMOs in their
so-called “natural” products?

During my research, I found out there is no regular independent third
party certifier verifying their products are non-GMO on a regular basis
at Trader Joe’s. It is completely up to Trader Joe’s product supply
team to regulate GMOs from suppliers – not the Non-GMO Project or
the USDA (for organics) that requires a high level of standards and
third party testing before stating a product can be deemed free of
GMOs. If there are complaints about a product, Trader Joe’s will conduct
verification with a secret third party that they won’t disclose, but
it’s completely up to the consumer to alert Trader Joe’s with a
complaint.

In fact, Trader Joe’s stated that their products “don’t allow for
auditing using the Non-GMO Project because there is an additional cost
associated with that.” A representative from Trader Joe’s went on to
say, “We tend to not label our products a whole lot, and won’t until
there is a government regulation to understand what non-GMO even means,
we aren’t going to label products that don’t have specific FDA
guidelines.” So this begs the question – what does non-GMO mean to
Trader Joe’s? Are they making up their own definition because they claim
they don’t have direction from a governmental official?

I reached out to the Executive Director of the Non-GMO Project, Megan
Westgate, to find why Trader Joe’s refuses to become Non-GMO certified.
This is what she said:

“The Non-GMO Project
has reached out to Trader Joe’s a number of times over the years, and
we remain hopeful that at some point we will be able to forge a
meaningful partnership with them. To date, it has been very difficult to ascertain the credibility of their non-GMO claims. We know that many consumers believe Trader Joe’s to be a GMO-free store, but without transparent standards or third-party verification this is impossible to confirm.
Many other retailers–independent grocers, co-ops, and Whole Foods
Market–are leading the way by requiring rigorous testing and labeling,
and it would be great to see Trader Joe’s follow suit.”

1 comment:

Leave it to the world of marketing to figure out the potent social moods and commodify them. If there is an ecological movement, a green movement, attach your product to it, whether it is true to those causes or not. The bottom line is that you see a way to link your product to whatever is happening. Back in the 70s when I saw the commodification of the peace sign, I knew it was all over. A symbol of a struggle reduced to belt buckles, t-shirts, candles, you name it.

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